Girl on Grill Action

I love a good barbecue. I jump at any opportunity to start creating inventive marinades or rubs, slathering them on fine cuts of meat and then whacking them on the grill. The smell of of the meat and sauce marrying together over hot coals gives me an immense sense of pleasure.

Am I the only person who gets excited perusing the vast array of barbecue sauces on the market today? There are so many to choose from! My personal favourite is Cattlemen's, which can be purchased in Sainsbury's or Waitrose. I get equally excited about salad dressings. Try Brianna's Rich Poppy Seed, if you can find it.

Of course, barbecues can also go woefully wrong. This can be the case if you use inferior cuts of meat or frozen burgers and sausages. They just lack the depth of flavour that comes with finer cuts, quality ground beef or speciality sausages.

There are a vast array of things you can cook on a grill, and not all meat based. You can make souvlaki, BBQ maple ribs, grilled sweetcorn with butter and chilli flakes, citrus monkfish, halloumi, blue cheese burgers...the list goes on.

One of my finest memories involves a barbecue. Beth, our friends and I had just arrived at the Moonshine Cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains at the start of our holiday to Dollywood and Nashville. As a pinky orange sun was setting over the horizon, we cracked open some ice cold bottles of local beer, got the hot tub going and struck up the grill. We ate our charcol grilled steaks with salad whilst the eagles flew in the distance and Johnny Cash played on the stereo. Can it get any better?